1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to hard-disk drives for personal computers (i.e, microcomputers) and, more particularly, to housings for hard-disk drives that are externally connected to personal computers.
2. State of the Art
Personal computers (PC's) usually have disk drive units employing flexible or "floppy" magnetic disks for mass data storage. The primary advantage of floppy disks is that they can be easily removed from and replaced in drive units. The disadvantage of floppy disks is that their data storage capacity is relatively limited; for example, the typical capacity of a floppy disk is about 800,000 bytes of encoded binary information. An alternative to floppy disk is rigid or "hard" disks. By way of contrast to floppy disks, hard disks can store 20 megabytes or more of binary information, but are generally not removable from their drive units.
Many PC's are sold with floppy disk drives as "original equipment", but include appropriate circuitry and connectors to receive an externally connected hard disk drive if a user needs increased data storage capacity. A disadvantage of externally connecting a hard disk drive to a PC is that the drive occupies desk space that may be needed for other purposes. To alleviate this problem, some users mount their PC atop hard-disk drive units. Such a solution, however, is not entirely satisfactory because operation of a disk drive generates heat that may detrimentally affect a PC mounted above it. The heating problems may exist even when disk drives are equipped with cooling fans, and noise from the fans may be annoying.